Breaking the Silence: Confronting Mental Health Stigma

Of the estimated 57.8 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States, diagnosed in 2021 with any mental illness, more than half were hesitant to seek help for their disorders.²⁹ Why do people refrain from or delay seeking treatment for their perceived/diagnosed mental struggles and mental illness? Among the myriad of reasons, people are concerned that they will be treated differently by others (including co-workers, family members, and loved ones), or they fear losing their jobs, thus their livelihood. “That's because stigma, prejudice and discrimination against people with mental illness are still very much a problem.”²⁹

There are three types of stigmas identified by researchers that are self-inflicted or other-inflicted:

• Public stigma involves discriminatory or biased attitudes people may have about mental illness.

• Self-stigma refers to an individual having negative attitudes and internalized shame about their condition.

• Structural stigma is more systemic, involving policies of government and private organizations that intentionally or unintentionally limit opportunities for people with mental illness.²⁹

Because people often do not elect to seek treatment for mental health or addiction problems through a general medical office, they typically present somatic complaints such as “stress” or “fatigue.” Such a complaint sounds less urgent than other types of physical matters, thus the patient leaves the doctor’s office without an established psychiatric diagnosis. Masking problems with physical symptoms while leaving the underlying mental health problem unaddressed, causes the problem to get worse. In addition to these limitations, traditional medicine can be challenging for mental health patients because of the social stigmas associated with mental illness. In general, patients are reluctant to seek help this way, as the time needed to explain the nature of their emotional problems and the fear of being labeled “difficult” or “crazy” leads to the avoidance of regular annual check-ups. Subsequently, traditional medical practice is often not conducive to the treatment of these types of problems.²⁰